


Broken Strings

by wildzubat



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 13:37:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18152558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildzubat/pseuds/wildzubat
Summary: Darius' violin is a battered old thing, but it serves many purposes over the years.A character study on Darius.Inspired by this picture: https://twitter.com/isacoQ/status/1106175923810779136





	Broken Strings

**Author's Note:**

> Please forgive me if I get details wrong about violins & fiddling! I played flute and piano growing up, and most of my knowledge of violin care comes from classmates, one of my nieces, and the internet.
> 
> Big thanks to V. for proofreading this for me!

Darius's violin is battered old thing. The bow badly needs re-haired, and the violin itself needs new tuning pegs and other care he really can't afford, but he learned how to play it from his uncle before things went to shit. And it's not that he's sentimental or anything, but he never sells it even when he's so desperate for money and food that he considers trying to eat what's left of the rosin. His excuse is that he can make a few leaves fiddling on the right street corner, and he can hide things inside it and its battered old leather carrying case. 

He's been lucky so far - managed to keep it hidden and safe somewhere he can retrieve it when he gets outta jail each time. He knows his luck's gonna run out one day, though, and some guard'll probably take it and pawn it for a few extra leaves or trade it for an extra drink. If that happens, he can steal it back or find another if he really wants. It's just more convenient if he doesn't have to do much more than buy (or steal) new strings from time to time.

Nostalgia's got nothing to do with it.

(Though, if he's honest, he doesn't mind the reminders that come with it every time he breaks a string. All the lessons he learned from his bastard uncle. Nothing good lasts. Everything and everyone's a tool for someone else.)

 

Later on, it's got another use too. He picks up a tagalong in a jail cell - skinny kid with the deftest hands he's ever seen, and that's saying something the way his uncle'd been before literally trying to sell him up the river.

(Darius learned early to trust no one and nothing. Even - maybe especially - the people who were nice to you. No telling when they'd turn around. Better to turn on 'em first. He kept the fiddle, though. Didn't mean he couldn't keep some of the good times.)

And the kid's a shy, quiet sort, who tries to seem tough with a mouth full of wisecracks and a fire in his green eyes, but Darius can read him like a book. The kid's lonely and reminds Darius a lot of how he'd been, wanting so badly to be liked by someone before he'd learned better. It's one part cute and one part pathetic how easy it is to get the kid to stick around once they're free. Like feeding a stray dog a scrap only to have it wag its tail every time it sees you forever after. But he can't say he didn't warn the kid - he tells him to trust no one (never mind that he's already put his arm around the kid's bony shoulders and called him partner).

The kid - Therion - stays quiet and shy but he comes out of his shell a bit more when Darius plays the fiddle. The Riverlands have a rich tapestry of folk songs to choose from, and Darius isn't too bad at improvising them. He soon figures out the tunes the kid likes best even without him saying by the small smiles, the gasps and the shining eyes. The way he bounces to the rhythm. 

Therion is fascinated by the damn thing, and even when Darius threatens to break his nimble little fingers if he snaps a string, Therion still wants to see it. To hold it. He asks if Darius can teach him how to play.

So Darius does. Not because he likes the kid or anything (all right, maybe he's kinda fond of him like he might be a stray dog, a pet) but it passes the time between jobs or huddled at night in whatever ramshackle shelter they could find from the rain and the damp chill. Therion's a quick learner, sharp and just as graceful with his fingers on the strings and the bow as he is with loosing the cords of a coin purse from a belt. Darius thinks given the time, the kid might be better than him at fiddling. He doesn't tell him, though. After all, he's the real musician here, and the kid wouldn't know shit if not for him.

 

He teaches Therion other things, too. Makes him into a proper partner in crime. But where picking up the fiddle had been cute, the way Therion picks up everything else is something Darius grows to hate. Where the fuck does he get off picking locks and dodging traps and melting into disguises like he's Aeber himself? It's useful, sure, but it's fucking wasted on this kid whose got no real ambitions. Who fuckin' sneaks some of (his) their leaves into beggars' cups when he thinks Darius isn't looking.

The first time Therion does it, he doesn't hide it, and Darius lights into him for it. That's their hard-earned leaf he's wasting on those what can't get it themselves. So Therion starts doing it more discreetly, until eventually Darius catches him again. Therion points out softly that it's not that different from when they've played the fiddle on the street corner. The beggars just don't have a partner to pick the pockets of those listening. Darius snarls that he's nothing like that street trash, and he drives home the lesson with the back of his hand. (It's not the first lesson he punctuates this way, and it won't be the last. It's how he learned his lessons and it worked good enough for him. Seems to work good enough for Therion too.)

They stop playing on street corners after that. Darius insists they're better than that, and he means it. There's better shit to steal out there that'll outstrip anything they might get from picking pockets and the small fry stuff they do now.

Even so, he still doesn't sell the fiddle. But it gets played less and less. It's not as fun, knowing Therion can play the same tunes as good as or better. Besides, as they get older and have the coin to afford food and drink and proper beds, there are other better ways to pass the time. Other ways to get smiles and gasps out of his partner. And Darius is better than some street musician. Better than his uncle. Better than his stupid partner, too soft and sentimental to stop lugging the stupid violin around.

 

Sometimes, though, he still gets it out to check the strings. Anymore, he either waits until Therion's busy or otherwise sends him away before getting it out, playing a few scales. There's still lessons he wants to remember, after all.

It's during just such a moment of reminiscing that he hears a very deliberate footstep, and he looks up to see a sword leveled his way. At the other end of the sword is a smirking someone Darius has rather hoped to avoid - one of the Cianno group they'd so recently relieved of surplus treasure. She's not alone, and Darius knows better than to pick a losing fight just now. He'd thought they'd dodged them when they bounced town, but seems like they didn't cover their tracks well enough - or maybe... could his partner have ... nah, Therion wasn't that unloyal. Or was he? Darius remembers him saying the Cianno's'd be looking for revenge...

Darius doesn't get the chance to think on it long, because the woman's talking to him, telling him he's got two choices, and only one of them means leaving here alive. She laughs at the way his eyes light up when she mentions joining them could come with advancement potential. There's just one snag: they've only got room for one.

She smiles and lowers her sword to tap his violin with the blade. It makes a hollow knocking sound, and Darius grimaces to see a new nick in the varnish. What'll it be? He gonna perform for them? Ambitious guy like him - maybe he'll lead his own ensemble someday if he plays his cards right. isn't just anyone with the balls to cross them, after all.

Picking up the bow he'd dropped in surprise, Darius gives her a smirk of his own. He tucks the fiddle back under his chin, and he doesn't even wince when one of the strings snap with the screeching force of his reply.

 

Two days later, they're in Bolderfall, and there's a fiddler playing in one of the taverns. Therion smiles and taps his foot to the music as he and Darius share a drink. Darius broods, and Therion says he remembers they used to play this one a lot. That evening, Therion gets out the violin, and he's dead quiet. One of the strings is broken. (Darius never replaced it.) Therion gets out another one and restrings it how Darius'd taught him years ago.

But just as he's tuned it and runs through a bit of a clumsy warm up, Darius snaps instead. They argue (mostly it's Darius yelling and Therion bracing to let the storm pass), and when Darius brings up the broken string, Therion has the gall to point out it was already broken when he opened the case, and Darius just knows he knew about it somehow and started this whole thing just to mock him. Probably paid the fiddler to play that tune as an excuse and everything.

The violin gets broken in the row. (Darius breaks the violin, rips it from Therion's hands, throws it at the wall, only missing his partner because Therion flinches away.) It leaves splinters all over the floor. One of the strings remains in tact somehow and catches the light as it curls in the carnage.

The night passes in silence.

Therion is gone in the morning, but Darius finds him in the uptown markets, negotiating with a local luthier. He hangs back and watches through the shop windows and nearly startles out of his skin when he sees a woman walk by who looks remarkably familiar. She's gone before he can be sure, but he can't shake the feeling of eyes on him. Something about the luthier's thick set shoulders and near-sighted squint reminds him of his uncle. He hasn't thought about the bastard in ages, but he thinks of him now and the lessons he taught.

The sound of his partner testing a new violin drifts out the open door, and Darius makes up his mind anew.

Therion's surprised to find Darius just outside the shop, but he holds out the instrument in its case - brand new and better than his uncle's shabby old thing had ever been - and apologizes for last night. (As he should - it's his damn fault the violin was broken in the first place. If he hadn't shown off, if he hadn't mocked how Darius got caught, if he --)

They leave town heading south not long after. Therion doesn't question it when Darius says he's caught wind of a cache that might be worth checking out.

In the red light of dusk, the wind pulling at their mantles, it ends. There is, after all, only room for one, and only one person can play at a time, anyway.

 

Darius sells the violin for a tidy profit next time he passes through Saintsbridge.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
